Date

Time

Location

Mar. 7

At a time of growing global anti-democratic repression against migrants, minorities and dissidents, how can the university serve as a Sanctuary? The expansion of the New Sanctuary movement beyond places of worship into universities began in the wake of electing an ethno-nationalist far-right President into office in November 2016. Even as universities like NYU represent themselves as sanctuaries for the free exchange of ideas, they refuse to declare themselves “sanctuary campuses” for targeted populations for fear of state retaliation. This symposium highlights the meanings, possibilities and limits of “sanctuary” in practice for academic institutions of higher learning. In the US, as in many parts of the world, the university remains one of the few institutional spaces where the right-wing have not been able to exert its hegemony.

We hope to raise the following sets of questions in our symposium: What might we learn from the history of earlier movements for abolition and sanctuary in the US? What do scholars and students who have faced repressive political climates have to teach us today? How can universities offer physical harbor and amplify the voices and experiences of vulnerable or marginalized communities? In what ways do they foster the exchange of new ideas and of dissensual politics, and what are the limits of these intellectual and critical practices?

In this symposium, we consider the possibilities of building and sustaining coalitions around the coordinated attacks on racialized and migrant communities. We are especially interested in highlighting how activist-scholars learn from other one other, across the campus, across generations, and across the globe. This symposium offers scholars, activists, and students an opportunity for dialogue about the many ways the university can be mobilized for the purposes of sanctuary and for solidarity, and ends with a reception in the mural and sound installation, We Imagine Sanctuary.